Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Perusing Shmuley's blog to check out his parsha insights led me to yet another post from him about Toldot. Not surprisingly, Shmuley takes the traditional line about Jacob being Mr. Fantastic and runs with it, going so far as to use him for a model for all people brave enough to stand up and confront evil in the world.

There was Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron, to name but a few. However, only Jacob was given a second name by God himself, which was the name “Israel.”

Um, why don't "Abraham" or "Sarah" count? Hello?

Jacob was the first to directly engage the forces of evil and to dwell in the midst of imperfect, immoral societies, in an effort to elevate them from their degraded way of life.

Wow. Sorry to butt in, but I have to say, when I look at Toldot, Jacob's behavior doesn't exactly strike me as the "elevating" type.

Our initial insight into this characteristic that would define his entire life, is seen from his actions regarding the first born blessing that his father Isaac had intended for Esau, Jacob’s wicked older brother. Here there was a great dilemma facing Jacob. Would he be willing to secretly dress himself in his sibling’s best garments, place sheep’s wool on his arms and neck to appear hairy like his brother, and try to convince his blind father that he was Esau, all in order to receive this unique blessing? Or would he sit back, let his corrupt brother be blessed with even more power, and rationalize to himself that it was really in God’s hands what would occur?

The spin here is really quite impressive. Let's imagine this a different way: "Would he be honest enough, upstanding enough, and frankly, bad-ass enough, to beat up a nun and steal her clothes in order to steal her paycheck from the Pope? Most people draw the line at nun-beating... but when evil's involved... all bets are off!"

Sorry, where were we? Oh right, Shmuley's ode to lying, thieving Jacob. Back to you, Shmoo.

Jacob had to make a potentially life threatening choice. If things went wrong, he risked being struck by a potentially unstoppable curse from a powerfully spiritual prophet, namely his father Isaac, who was not aware of the true character of Esau. Jacob also risked having this emotionally unstable, bloodthirsty brother walk in on him after having just finished a hunt, with sword and bow still in hand. Jacob knew that even if he left from his father’s presence that day unharmed, he would likely be pursued with a lifelong hatred from his now enraged, humiliated brother. Furthermore, Jacob’s plan of action would involve morally questionable activities, that when applied correctly could be justified, but when used for the wrong purposes, constituted the antithesis of God’s will. He would have to deceive his father, to tell him untruths, and to steal a blessing meant for his own brother. The easiest course would have been for Jacob to take the path of pacifism. “I will sit back, I will not act, and I will not risk any action that could compromise my present status as a moral being.” But Jacob chose the opposite. He went down a path that is not clearly defined and that is morally ambiguous. One that might invoke condemnation from his peers, and that required finely nuanced deliberations that not everyone would be privy to. It was this moral courage that Jacob summoned that made him great.

HUH. Not really sure what to say here. Are we sure we're reading the same book?

It's not that Shmuley has no leg to stand on, it's just that his approach really rubs me the wrong way. As much as I've been bashing Jacob, I definitely think, as with the other patriarchs, that there's great lessons to be learned in his character and story. But whereas my approach is to look for flaws in the Torah's characters, which reflect the flaws and doubts of real people not only living right now, but also back then, Shmuley, as many traditionalists tend to do, takes the complex and extremely human characters of the Torah and buffs and shines them until you can barely recognize them as human at all. Shmuley's gloss on Jacob comes from a place of profound certainty and rectitude, whereas I claim him as an example for the rest of us-- of how an incredibly imperfect man can grow.

The best example of where Shmuley and I part ways is when Shmuley starts talking about visiting South Africa:

When I was visiting South Africa with my wife a number of years back, I sat in an audience of 400 people listening to a talk given on Robbins Island, by a panel discussing the topic of apartheid and reconciliation. One of the men who spoke was a former white police officer, who said that during apartheid, he had once been sent to a black township to quell a riot that had broken out. He described how he took a completely innocent mother and her children, put them in a house in view of everyone, and burned all ten of them alive. This ended the riot. Afterward, the South African justice system at that time sentenced him to seventeen years in jail for those murders. When apartheid ended, Nobel Prize winner Bishop Tutu organized a system that allowed some of those imprisoned to confess their crimes, express remorse, and be free to go. This white police officer obviously took up this offer. After being released from jail early, he now had decided to spend his time speaking and trying to encourage reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. At the end of his speech, the 400 people in the audience filled the room with thunderous applause. Actually, it was 398 people applauding, for my wife and I sat there silent. When the noise had died down, I stood up, pointed at the speaker, and declared before everyone there, “You sir are a murderer!” I went on to blast this perversion of justice whereby a person could merely apologize, verbally, and thus be exculpated from spilling innocent blood, especially that of children. At that time one of the speakers in attendance replied that I must be saying this because I was Jewish, and that the Jewish religion didn’t have a well defined concept of forgiveness. I responded to him that he was very mistaken, and that the Jewish religion has at its center the concept of forgiveness and indeed three separate words for forgiveness, selicha, mechila, and kaparah. But forgiveness must be earned, and no person has the right to absolve someone of an injustice on behalf of another person. How would they feel if someone who murdered their family was released from prison because he said he was sorry? This idea of unregulated pacifism and forgiveness, even to those who commit the most heinous of crimes, is not what the bible aims to teach us.

The irony here is striking. Could not the very same type of accusations be leveled at Jacob? Could not Esau be held up as a classic example of a wronged victim whom others have been more than willing to shove aside in the name of "forgiveness?" Yes, Esau eventually forgives Jacob in the Torah, but his story and voice are mostly silent, and rather than considering events from his point of view, the lion's share of classic Jewish tradition has spent its energies exhaustively cataloguing (or outright inventing) various reasons to "explain" why Jacob was really good and Esau really evil. Over the centuries, have the sages not perhaps been a little too eager to forgive Jacob on behalf of Esau, without necessarily caring about whether Esau was truly given full recompense by his brother? No one dares point the finger at Jacob, calling out with full righteous indignation, "You are a liar and a thief!"

Shmuley is convinced that Jacob is the ideal archetype for being a prophet for truth and righteousness:

our forefather Jacob taught us that only by challenging evil and standing up for what is good, can peace be brought to the world. Abraham and Isaac worked diligently to disseminate the knowledge of God, and yet to a large degree they still lived apart from the uncivilized masses. Once he arrived in Canaan, Abraham spent a brief time in Egypt and the territory of the Philistines. Yet overall he kept his distance from the corrupting outside culture. He would pray for Sodom and Gomorrah from afar, but would not dare live there. Isaac, even more so, secluded himself from the outside impure world. In fact he never left the borders of the future land of Israel his entire life. It was only Jacob who was required to leave Canaan and live in a foreign land for an extended period of time. First he dwelt in Aram Naharaim with his wicked uncle Laban for twenty years. He then returned and chose to dwell in the fields of Shechem adjacent to the natives in the land. And finally, he lived the last seventeen years of his life in Egypt. Jacob’s consistent willingness to put everything on the line for the future welfare of the Jewish nation, and his very direct confrontation with evil, gave him the privilege of God’s chosen nation being named after him.

The problem with this, for me, is that it misunderstands Jacob's fundamental character and utility-- he is not a prophet, he is a wanderer. He is not a missionary so confident in himself that he has nothing better to do but lecture others on how to live (does he ever do that in the Torah?); he is a physically and emotionally wounded man struggling with his doubts, demons and past. Jacob's primary lessons are not directed outward, like a prophet's, but rather inward, as a model for personal teshuvah and improvement.

For me, the value in Jacob's story lies not in the fact that he is so great (he's not), but that he comes from such a dark place and through continued struggle is able to better himself. Rather than mis-casting him as an example for great leadership, I think he is better seen as a model for honesty and open assessment of one's own faults and shortcomings.

Of course, that would require admitting that the Patriarchs are far from perfect-- and that the point of having these details be in the text is not for us to rationalize or justify them, but learn from them.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

When discussing Toldot I mentioned an old college paper I wrote about Jacob and Esau in the Midrash and Zohar. Just for chuckles I went traipsing through the dark digital wastelands of my hard drive to bring back this priceless jewel from my student days. Here are some of the choicer tidbits:

Fun with Sefirot:

Isaac is identified with Din, but Rebekah is identified with Shekhinah, “softened” with Hesed (Love), Abraham’s Sefirah. Isaac is “severe Judgment”, but Rebekkah is described as tempering him: “Rebekah issues from the side of severe Judgment, but she withdrew from among them and joined Isaac; for although she issues from… severe Judgment, she is mild Judgment.” (Zohar) The last line of the page is particularly significant: “If she had not been mild, the world could not have endured the severe Judgment of Isaac.”The implication here is fascinating; it seems that without Rebekah’s moderating influence, Isaac could have become as bad, or even worse, than Esau.

...within the Zoharic cosmological system of the ten Sefirot, Isaac is symbolized by the Sefirah Din, Severe Judgment, whose color association is red. Similarly, Esau is always identified with red in rabbinic literature. The Midrash uses the following description: "He was red, his food red, his land red, his warriors were red, their garments were red, his avenger will be red, clad in red." (Midrash Rabbah)

Here is where we begin to see the violent de-legitimization of Esau. The Midrash associates the color red with war, and connects Esau’s redness with his violent behavior... [In Kabbalistic commentaries on the Zohar,] Esau, identified with the liver, is actually accused of needing to sustain himself with blood, both spiritually, as a violent warrior, as well as, apparently, in terms of physical nutrition. Esau is thus turned into a cannibalistic and vampiric figure; he is, literally, demonized.

Discussing the womb-fight:

...[There is a variant midrash stating] that the brothers’ dispute [in the womb] involved proxy fighters, their respective guardian angels. Esau was allied with Samael, and Jacob with Michael (who, incidentally, was responsible for saving his father Isaac as a boy, by substituting a ram for Abraham’s sacrifice). The tradition goes on to say that Samael went so far as to attempt to kill Jacob, and it was eventually necessary to for God to convene a heavenly court to arbitrate the dispute between the angels (we are not told who won).

...[Here] we see a direct Midrashic association of Esau with Samael (showing that the connection was not something invented by the Zohar). This relationship is teased out even further through Midrash relating to the twins being born with their respective “signs”. Jacob is described as having been born circumcised, a sign that he was particularly special and holy (some other Biblical figures with the same distinction include Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Joseph, Moses, Samuel and David). Esau, on the other hand, in addition to being born hairy (including a full-grown beard), with all his teeth, and being “blood-red, a sign of his future sanguinary nature”, is born with the mark of a serpent, “the symbol of all that is wicket and hated of God.” (Ginzberg)

At the end of the day, Jews just don't like hunters:

Both the Zohar and the Midrash identify Esau as a hunter on multiple levels. One Midrash commentary associates the term as having a spiritual dimension: “Both [brothers] were hunters of men, Esau tried to capture them in order to turn them away from God, and Jacob, to turn them toward God.” (Ginzberg) Esau is portrayed as hunting men in various ways- through physical violence, as he does with Nimrod; through the spiritual component, by trying to “hunt” men’s souls, and, lastly, through intellectual deceit. Esau deceives his father into thinking him pious, and there is even a Midrash that, in an interesting twist on the verse, “Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for hunted game” (Gen. 25:28), says that he actually serves his father non-kosher dog-meat. We see hunting and trapping going from mere physical descriptions to immoral activities, which can in turn be plugged into the Sefirotic system, emblematic of the seduction and deception of the “left side”.

Monday, December 12, 2011

(Question to the readers- I'm experimenting with a new style on this second Parsha post. More of a thematic riff and less point-by-point of things I think are weird. Let me know if you think one works more than the other. Or maybe you don't care about any of this and think I'm wasting my time. That's fine to say, too. Never let it be said I'm not open to criticism.)

Toldot

I'm very biased when it comes to Toldot. For a college class on Jewish Mysticism I wrote a paper analyzing historical attitudes toward the brothers Ben-Isaac and, well, suffice it to say midrash and the Zohar are not very kind to ol' Esau. As always, I have very mixed feelings when it comes to midrash. On the one hand it can be a wonderful way of digging deeper into something, but on the other hand it often comes across as commentators bending over backwards to justify or rationalize pre-existing attitudes or conceptions. This gets particularly loaded once Jacob becomes an analogue for the Jewish people, and Esau becomes similarly identified as a stand-in for Rome, or Gentiles in general. The more symbolic the two brothers are, the more justification needs to be provided to explain why Jacob is seen as so good and Esau so bad.

The Birthright

Artscroll cites the Talmud saying that the birthright episode occurs in the context of Abraham's death and that Jacob's lentils are intended as a mourner's meal for Isaac. Artscroll says, "On that very day, Esau's sinfulness became public knowledge." It does not explicitly explain what that sinfulness was but suggests that Esau was not mourning his grandfather as he should have been. "Esau went about his evil business as usual, uninvolved in his family's bereavement." This would be more convincing if there was anything remotely hinting at him being sinful in the text. Hertz's apologetics are a little more extensive: "In primitive times, the head of the clan or the firstborn acted as the priest. Esau's general behavior hardly accorded with what was due from one who was supposed to serve the Supreme God; and Jacob suspected that his brother did not value the dignity and privilege of being the firstborn as they should be valued." Hertz goes on to call Esau "a true sensualist," noting that "the spiritual inheritance of Abraham... was not worth to him as much as a dish of pottage." By contrast, EH quotes R. Soloveitchik, who attempts to locate some justification for Esau's inability to value his birthright. Soloveitchik suggests two possible reasons for Esau's behavior: his physical hunger may be so overwhelming that he cannot think in religious terms, or the hunger may also be an indication that he "lacks a sustaining faith to give meaning to his life," particularly at moments of struggle or hardship. "He is weary of the pointlessness of life and the inevitability of death." This is a clever way of linking back to Esau's role as a hunter. As opposed to the "traditional" gloss which sees Esau's hunting as proof that he has a violent or bloody personality, Soloveitchik wonders whether a continual exposure to death may have been detrimental to Esau's spiritual development (or, possibly, whether a lack of faith from an early age coupled with regular killing may have led to the ancient equivalent of spiritual depression).

The Blessing

While the birthright episode shows Esau as kind of dumb and Jacob as resourceful, the blessing is the point where Jacob (and his mother Rebecca) explicitly conspire to steal from Esau. It's a pretty uncomfortable moment, and I've never been able to swallow much of the rationalizations explaining why Esau was so awful he didn't deserve the birthright, or why despite the fact that Jacob is a thieving jerk he's really Mr. Fantastic.

Artscroll and Hertz both lay the responsibility for Jacob's theft on his mother Rebecca, noting that she had been given prophecy that "the elder shall seve the younger." Hertz says, "Knowing how attached Isaac was to the elder son, she must have felt that it would be useless to try and dissuade her husband from his intention [to bless him]. She, therefore, in desperation, decided to circumvent him." Artscroll adds, "[because of the prophecy that one would be superior,] any plan Isaac might have to enlist them in joint service of God could not succeed-- but he had not been authorized to convey this to Isaac. Her only alternative was to deceive Isaac into blessing Jacob." This reeks of bending over backwards to me; it's more honest to say (as the EH and TMC do) that Rebecca and Isaac each had favorite sons, and that Rebecca was backing her favorite, not throwing in this totally extra-textual bit about how God swore Rebecca to secrecy so she's incapable of talking to Isaac about how Esau is a jerk and Jacob is the best think since sliced lentils. Artscroll continues to lay things on quite thick by calling Jacob's theft "his personal Akedah... because, as the Sages derive from Scripture, Jacob personified truth and the blessings would be ratified by God... But his mother was commanding him to secure those blessings by deceiving his father! For Jacob to do so was totally against his nature." Really? Because the only other episode the text mentions of him before this is him ripping off his brother, so I'm not sure where you're getting this. Various critics have gone so far as to identify Jacob as an explicit "trickster" character, something the text alludes to in Esau's wordplay when he curses his brother.

I have to say, within the confines of the text, Esau doesn't seem all that bad to me. He reads as self-centered and perhaps impulsive, but I just don't see the evidence to support all the interpretations that make him out to be sacriligeous, violent, or downright evil. If anything, these strike me as retroactive attempts to justify Jacob's repeated thefts from Esau, which can only really be explained (much less made defensible) if one argues that Esau was somehow unworthy of his birthright or his father's blessing. In the parsha, however, Esau reads as more clueless than malevolent, and Jacob comes across to me as not noble but a bit of a schemer, trying to exploit his brother's and father's weakness for his own benefit.

What's wrong with Isaac?

Until I actually started reading the chumash regularly, I never realized just how minor a character Isaac was. I had some awareness that I didn't know much about him, but since I knew he was a patriarch, I assumed that he did, well... something. But it turns out, no, not so much. His role, compared to his father and grandfather, is strangely muted. Mostly he just retreads old ground. Some commentators, particularly among traditionalists have read this as a positive, demonstrating Isaac's fealty to his father's traditions and value as a "link in the chain" between the generations (also in the process, IMO, seeing themselves as Isaac's modern-day descendants). But while following your father's traditions is well and good, the fact that Isaac is so passive, particularly when compared to his father, does beg some explanation. The EH comments on Isaac's "blindness," saying that various classical commentators saw this as a reference to the lack of clarity he showed in his treatment of his two sons. "Because his loved and envied Esau, he was blind to Esau's faults." (Thought: by the same token, he was perhaps blind to Jacob's good points?) One midrash says "Isaac's judgment is clouded by Esau bringing him his favorite foods." Another connects Isaac's blindness to the Akedah years earlier when he glimpsed "the light of heaven... Isaac was never able to see events on earth clearly after that." The EH glosses this as saying that after seeing heaven, "Isaac was naively blind to lying and deceit on earth. He could no more recognize the transparent lies of Jacob than he could recognize the unworthiness of Esau."

The TMC attempts a psychological view, noting that Isaac's parents were extremely strong personalities and that he was born in the midst of their old age, and notes that Isaac's wife Rebecca is explicitly used as a replacement for his mother. Isaac is always dominated by more aggressive personalities around him. However the TMC also claims that "Isaac is old, but not senile... throughout the episode he is subconsciously aware of Jacob's identity. However since he is unable to admit this knowledge, he pretends to be deceived... he wants to be misled, in his heart he has long known that Esau cannot carry the burden of Abraham... Weak and indecisive man and father that he is, Isaac does not have the courage to face Esau with the truth. His own blindness and the ruse of Rebecca come literally as a godsend... Note that Isaac does not reprimand Jacob, for how can he, who has deceived himself be angry at deceit? In a sense, no one, not even Esau, is deceived, for he too knows that Jacob and not he is the chosen one." This is an interesting explanation but still leaves us with the problem of Jacob's theft, which the TMC, to its credit, notes: "the problem of Jacob's morality remains the same, for Jacob believes that he is deceiving his father and he acts on this belief."

None of the liberal commentaries mention it, but I also have to wonder whether the Akedah could have had a profound influence on Isaac's personality in another way, too-- rather than "glimpsing Heaven," Isaac might have glimpsed the possibility of his own terrifying death-- at the hands of both the Earthly and Heavenly fathers who were supposed to love and protect him. Perhaps the "blindness" Isaac experiences is a result of trauma. Perhaps Isaac is passive because he is a broken, or at least very meek, personality, and this helps explain his attraction and tendency to defer to people with stronger wills than his own.

Why do we like Jacob, again?

Looking at just the text, I find it very hard to find anything very positive about Jacob here. As a character, he's coming off as fairly contemptible. There may be all sorts of nefarious things Esau has been doing in his free time, but the Torah doesn't tell us about any of them, and so while Esau may not be the ideal person to carry on the family business of being the Chosen People, at best the whole scenario comes off as incredibly dysfunctional. There's also the problem that if Jacob is supposed to be so awesome, he should theoretically have some more skills at his disposal than merely jerking his brother around. Maybe call a family meeting? Try an intervention? For all of Jacob's allegedly great attributes, he seems to mostly be good at taking advantage of others. He doesn't even try to explain himself to his brother, instead he runs away. While there may be some self-preservation logic to this, it comes off as rather cowardly, and particularly low when the dispute is with his own twin brother. Jacob is not acting like someone wise, pious, or, I have to say, all that trusting in God.

Maybe I'm a bit of a softy (or too much of a contrarian), but when I read the part about Esau crying for Isaac to bless him too, my heart hurts a little. It's a masterful bit of storytelling that provides some fascinating insight into the Torah's views on human relations. We may be forced to accept (for whatever reason) that Esau was somehow unworthy of his birthright (another hint of democratic or meritocratic leanings in a time when birth order was extremely important to social standing), but unlike Ishmael, who is always presented at a distance, the Torah is not afraid of showing us Esau's pain, and of forcing us to sit with it. The fact that he may be imperfect or the wrong son to inherit the blessing does not negate his suffering. It's not really what we would think the Torah would choose to do with a typical "bad guy," and reminds me more of tragic King Saul than say, an outright villain like Moses' Pharaoh.

I'm not the only one with strong feelings about Toldot. Even Shmuley got into this one.

Spoiler: Shmuley claims no, even while actually admitting yes. Way to be, Shmoo. (Actually, the whole thing is quite similar to the TMC essay glossed above, though in typical Shmuley style it goes on several rambling trips into pop culture, and of course, a good book plug.)

Next time: I dig up that old Zohar paper and a good chuckle is had by all (at either my brilliant insights or painful academic writing, take your pick).

*(Sources: Five Books of Moses, by Prof. Everett Fox, Five Books of Moses, by Prof. Robert Alter, Torah: A Modern Commentary, by URJ, Etz Hayim, by JTS, Soncino Pentateuch & Haftorahs, by R. Hertz, and the Artscroll Tanach, by R. Nosson Scherman.)*

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Am I the only one that doesn't take my culture war punditry cues from the post office?

Dateline 2009: A youthful Obama was still being accused of being a foreign-born Communist Jihadi sleeper agent. Nancy Pelosi was enjoying her term as Majority Speaker of the House, and Lady Gaga and Katy Perry had yet to go completely crazy.

And somewhere, in some distant corner of the internet, a conservative crank named Samuel Blumenfeld was getting his undies in a bunch over offensive postage stamps. And by offensive, I mean that they weren't Christian.

They've issued stamps for Secular Humanists, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, two Islamic holidays and, lastly, Christmas. Sorry, Buddhists, no stamps for you, at least not yet. Back in the old days, the Christmas stamp was the only stamp issued for Christmas, the joyous festival that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ all over the globe.

According to Dr. Sam, postage stamps were one of THE definitive markers of how amorphous and degenerated American society had become. And while he was irked that so many non-Christian holidays had gotten in on the stamp action, he was magnanimous enough to permit Hanukkah stamps. (Given that Blumenfeld is a Jewish convert to Christianity as well as a writer for the John Birch society, I suppose that's rather big of him.)

Now, of course, Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, just happens to coincide with the Christmas season, so the Hanukkah stamp pictured with a menorah seems appropriate.After all, Jesus was Jewish.

Big sigh of relief, right? Well, not according to Tzvi Fishman, who seems determined to give Blumenfeld a run for his money in the big crank contest this year.

Hoop hoop hurray! America and Canada are putting out postal stamps for Hanukah! Hoop hoop hurray! What a proud day for the Jewish People! What a great achievement! How proud we all should be that our gentile masters have allowed us a miniature stamp commemorating Hanukah!

...In the tsunami of impurity and spiritual pollution that is Christmas, the Jews have been given a tiny little stamp, much like a rich landlord tosses a scrap of food to his dog. This December, in the sea of Christian symbols, Christian mangers, Christian Santas, Christian bell ringers, Christian advertisements, Christian store windows, Christian floor displays, Christian commercials, Christian TV shows, Christian office parties, and Christian messages of Christian saviors and goodwill to men, the Jews will have a stamp commemorating Hanukah. Halleluyah!

...Wake up, my friends. You may say that all the unholy decorations and stories of Jesus don’t bother you, but it isn’t true – their messages seep in like deadly poisons, reducing Hanukah and the GIANT ETERNAL TRUTHS OF TORAH into a tiny stamp. That’s right, my friends. In the incessant bombardment of Christian culture, Diaspora Judaism is reduced to stamp-size Judaism.

So, the Christian Jew is mad because the multicultural stamps show how dramatically Christmas is being pushed out of American culture. And the Jewy Jew is annoyed because there's so much Christmas in American culture that any dinky Hanukkah stamp is a tiny drop in the bucket.

Friday, December 02, 2011

Not me, but here are some interesting tidbits I've come across since Simchat Torah.

(Sources: Five Books of Moses, by Prof. Everett Fox, Five Books of Moses, by Prof. Robert Alter, Torah: A Modern Commentary, by URJ, Etz Hayim, by JTS, Soncino Pentateuch & Haftorahs, by R. Hertz, and the Artscroll Tanach, by R. Nosson Scherman.)

B'reishit

Song of Lamech (Gen. 4:23-24): "I have slain a man for wounding me/ And a boy for bruising me./ If Cain is avenged sevenfold/ Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold."

Alter reads this as a poetic fragment from a now-lost part of Hebrew oral tradition that the Torah's audience would have been familiar with. He notes that it sounds rather like a "warrior's triumphal song, cast as a boast to his wives." He suggests that Lamech "is saying (quite barbarically) that not only has he killed a man for wounding him, he has not hesitated to kill a mere boy for hurting him." EH takes the song less literally, seeing in it more of the kind of gladiatorial boasting from warriors or champions about to engage in combat. Lamech brags "that he does not need divine protection because he can defend himself with the new iron weapons of war. He places his faith in the power of technology." Per this view, Lamech is not a bully, but a mighty warrior whose skill is such that whereas his opponents can only bruise him, the same blows from him result in death. Somewhat similarly, Hertz sees it as a triumphant ode to industrialization and the creation of weaponry, "as mentioned in the previous verse." (This would make more sense except that the previous verse is talking about Tubal-Cain being the father of iron weapons, not Lamech.) As part of this gloss, Hertz connects Lamech's superiority in arms to the Cain reference, as well: "If Cain, though unarmed, was promised a sevenfold vengeance on a foe, I, equipped with the weapons invented by Tubal-Cain, will be able to exact a vengeance very much greater!" Artscroll, ever ready with the hard-to-swallow midrash, offers up the old "blind Lamech shot Cain" story from Rashi. In this interpretation, Lamech's song is a plea for forgiveness from his wives: "If the punishment of Cain, an intentional murderer, was delayed until the seventh generation, surely my punishment will be deferred many times seven because I killed accidentally!" I have to say, it's fascinating to watch the meanings of a few lines of text be interpreted so drastically differently. (While I don't buy Rashi's explanation at all, I am intrigued by the similarities between a blind Lamech shooting an arrow and killing Cain and the Norse story of Balder and Hoder. Cross-cultural exchange?)

Nephilim & B'nei ha-Eloheim (Gen. 6:1-4): Fallen angels and demi-gods? Now we're talking! Alter suggests they could be left-overs from pre- or un-Hebraic pantheons. Hertz gives an entirely different gloss by reading the Nephilim and "Sons of God" as being a reference to the godly descendants of Seth interacting with the "Sons of Men," that corrupted, descendants of Cain (or perhaps the "Sons of Men/Mighty" being rich and powerful nobles taking wives from common people). Both interpretations, Hertz says, indicate the failing morality of the time and necessitating the Flood. Artscroll follows the interpretation of B'nei Elohim as being nobles, citing Rashi as the source.

Lech Lecha

Abram's Rambo Moment (Gen. 14): Alter notes the shift of Abram going from being an important figure in his own story to suddenly becoming a "major player" on an international political and military stage-- something which is essentially confined to this single chapter, after which the narrative shifts back to Abram's personal story and that of his relationships with God and his family. Could this be an attempt to expand the scope of Abram's story? Alter notes that several of the kings mentioned in this section match up with historical records, so that element of the story has at least some basis in fact. Artscroll says this chapter shows Abram's "physical courage in battle" and EH notes that he is a "decisive, courageous and skilled battle commander"; perhaps this is an attempt to make him more well-rounded? While it's cool to think of Abraham as a macho man, I also have to wonder whether a wandering shepherd would really be all that likely to know about battle tactics. Hertz has nothing particularly noteworthy to say about Gen.14 other than to make a swipe at his favorite target, Bible critics: "This chapter does not fit in with any of the so-called 'sources' of the Bible critics; hence their determined attacks on its veracity." That's showing them, Rav!

Who is Melchizedek's God? (Gen. 14:18-20): We know he is the king of Salem (Jerusalem), but details are sketchy. He gives a prayer to El Elyon, who could either be referring to the Hebrew God, or El, one of the Canaanite Sky Gods. The text doesn't say, so people have interpreted it both ways. Hertz says "the Ras Shamra tablets show that it was quite a familiar appellation of Deity in pre-Mosaic Canaan," which he uses to conclude that "Melchizedek was evidently a convert of Abraham's." Not sure how you made that leap, but ok. Artscroll says that "The Sages" (I love them!) identified Melchizedek as Noah's son, Shem, Abraham's 9th-great-grandfather. (Chronology: who needs it!) Artscroll adds that Ramban said that Melchizedek was called "a priest of God, the Most High because unlike priests of the other nations who served angels, Melchizedek served Hashem." Again, possible but definitely not provable. R. Kook cites a midrash saying that Melchizedek (Shem) was God's original intended priest but that when he blessed Abraham before God, he lost his mandate (is someone insecure?). Kook extrapolates this midrash to focus on character traits of the two men:

Shem was called Malkhi-tzedek, literally, "the just king." He stressed the trait of tzedek — justice and worthiness. Abraham, on the hand, excelled in chesed and kindness. He sought to reach out to others, to influence and help them even beyond what they deserved.

Kook argues that Shem and Abraham offer two different models of God and religion. Shem's vision of God is beyond human accessibility, hence the need for a priestly intermediary. Abraham's view of religion is that all people are made in God's image, and therefore have the ability to access God already. The only need for a priest is to purify and atone for the people's transgressions. In other words, Abraham's priests have to do a little leg work but the end goal is still individuals interacting with God, whereas Shem's model is more Catholic in focus: all emphasis is on the priest with none on the people. (I'd be more convinced by this if there was any justification for it in the text.) EH admits that no one has any idea who this Melchizedek guy is, which is honest if not particularly enlightening. Alter notes that by borrowing the phrase in his address to the king of Sodom, Abram "elegantly co-opts" Melchizedek for Hebrew monotheism. (It wasn't just Abram; over the generations, ol' Melchi has gotten co-opted multiple times over, by the rabbis, the Essenes, the Kabbalists, the Christians, and even the Mormons. Lucky him.) The biggest surprise here is from the Reform TMC, which "adopts the interpretation which is also favored by Jewish tradition: Melchizedek and Abram worship the same God." I suppose they're entitled, but this seems like a pretty odd place to just take something on random faith based on no good evidence. Have you guys been reading Artscroll again?

Who was Hagar? (Gen. 16):

Hagar's title is usually translated as maidservant or concubine, but EH and Alter note that Hagar is Sarai's property, plain and simple. This is interesting both in terms of showing more of the social dynamics within Abram's household (which raises some questions about the nature of all those "servants" we've been hearing about), as well as for the notable fact that this is one of the only times in the Torah (AFAIK) that a subservient or underclass character is given agency as well as narrative power. The focus of the chapter is mostly confined to Hagar, and it is through her perspective, not Sarai's, that we hear about the women's quarrel, Hagar's flight, and her experience with God's angel as well as God himself, who she gives a new name, El-Roi, which could be read as "God who sees Me". Compare this with, say, Abram's servent Eliezer, who gets such little screen time that his most famous moment in the Torah may not actually even involve him. It's easy to see how Sarai might be feeling pushed out of her rightful position as the matriarch of Abram's household; at this point in the text, Hagar certainly seems like she's being placed on equal footing with Sarai-- a point Alter underscores by pointing out that the critical word in verse three, usually translated as: "gave [Hagar] to her husband Abram as concubine" is not actually the Hebrew word for concubine, pilegesh, but 'ishah, woman-- "the same term that identifies Sarai at the beginning of the verse." Do I detect a tiny seed of Liberation Theology here? Is the text suggesting that humanity and dignity remain the same regardless of social status? It's certainly an interesting coincidence that the primary struggle of the chapter is Sarai trying to enforce her superiority over Hagar-- a superiority undermined by the text itself! (Also look back to Hagar's name for God- he sees her, even though she's someone's slave. Neat stuff.)

The text doesn't offer very much background on Hagar, though some of the chumashim do try. EH and TMC both note the similarity between Hagar and the Arabic word hajara, meaning "flee" or "emigrate," suggesting both a different origin for Hagar as well as a hint to how she wound up in Canaan. Artscroll takes a different tack, going with a midrash attributed to Rashi claiming that she was the daughter of Pharaoh: "After seeing the miracles that were wrought on Sarah's behalf when she was abducted and taken to his palace, he gave Hagar to Sarah, saying, 'Better that she be a servant in their house than a princess in someone else's.'..." The midrash strikes me as a little silly (I notice Pharaoh didn't offer to become Abram's slave along with his daughter) but does offer another interesting add-on to the idea of doubles and inversions: Hagar is Sarai's slave, but she in her own way, she is also a princess-- not unlike Sarai/Sarah, whose name means "my princess"/"the princess."

Sarai's treatment of Hagar (Gen. 16:1-9):

Many of my chumashim mention Ramban's commentary that "Sarai our Mother acted sinfully in ill-treating Hagar, and also Abram in permitting it; therefore God heard her affliction and gave her a son who became the ancestor of a ferocious race that was destined to deal harshly with their descendants." I like that Ramban recognizes that Sarai committed a sin in how she treated Hagar, though it strikes me as odd that rather than ending her suffering, God explicitly tells her to go back and submit to Sarai's abuse, the implication being that her "reward" for this will be Ishmael's own mighty line. Ramban's drash is also impressive in noting that Abram was also responsible for the deteriorating relationship between his wife and concubine. Abram is criticized by Sarai in not standing up for her, and rather than comfort her, or speak to Hagar, he essentially says, "Do what you want, keep me out of it"-- which not only reads as a bit cowardly, but also a cop-out, particularly since he is the focal point of the love/status triangle! (This comes up again in Va-Yera, when Sarai kicks Ishmael out and Abraham feels bad but does nothing.)

Both the EH and TMC have some interesting linguistic insights. EH says the Hebrew verb used in the text "implies that Sarai subjected Hagar to physical and psychological abuse." TMC also calls Sarai's treatment of Hagar "abuse," with the deliberate goal of driving her out of the household, and notes that "the term for afflicting Hagar... is also used for Pharaoh's afflicting Israel in Egypt." There's only one problem: EH and TMC don't agree on what the verb is! (EH: va-t'anneha, TMC: inah). Help from Hebrew speakers, please?

Hertz stops short of calling Sarai's treatment abusive, saying merely that she "probably imposed harsh tasks on Hagar," and adds that most women would have had similar frustrations if their servant had been "disrespectful and ungrateful." It may be my 21st century anti-slavery bias here, but it's hard for me to feel all that sympathetic to Sarai.

Artscroll has nothing more to say about Hagar here. That brilliant princess midrash took up too much space on the page. Yeah, that was worth it.

Chayei Sarah

Getting the band back together (Gen. 25:9): "[Abraham's] sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah..."

Just like that, Ishmael's back in town? Seems like there's some story missing here...

TMC says that "the two brothers seem to live in harmony" after their parents' deaths. EH goes further into psychological territory, citing the Talmud's claim that "Ishmael changed his ways as he matured... he seems to have forgiven Abraham for having been a less-than-perfect father. Isaac too seems to have come to terms with his father's nearly killing him on Mount Moriah. Might these reconciliations have occurred in Abraham's lifetime and be the reason for the Torah's describing him as 'contented' in his old age?" The EH asks some interesting questions, but they seem to be reaching a little on this one, particularly with where they go next: "Can we see this as a model for family reconciliations, forgiving old hurts? And can it be a model for the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac, contemporary Arabs and Israeli Jews, to find grounds for forgiveness and reconciliation?" Ok, guys, seriously... it's ONE sentence, without ANY detailed description. Calm down. I thought you were supposed to belong to the historical school or something.

Hertz is the most conservative with his interpretation: "At the graveside of their father, the half-brothers were reconciled." Surprise, surprise, I like his best.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for happy endings in the Torah... particularly given some of the Jerry Springer back-stabbing going on in the last few parshot... but let's try to rein ourselves in a little bit, please. The liberal chumashim need to stop trying to out-Artscroll Artscroll.

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